Playlist order changed in Android Auto

[meridder]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

(Pixel 7)

Operating System

(Android 16)

My Issue

When I first paired my phone to my car and accessed the Your Episodes playlist, it would show up on the Android Auto GUI in the order I selected on my phone: release date, ascending. Recently, when I opened the playlist to start playing the episodes currently in there, I noticed they were sorted by date added instead, but only on the Android Auto GUI. I've come across multiple posts about this from years ago where some people say that the difference in order is the "expected behavior" (from a 2023 post) when that was never the case after months of use for me until now. Another commenter suggested toggling off smart shuffle, but that didn't work either. I also cleared the cache and storage of both Spotify and Android Auto, restarted my phone multiple times, unpaired and re-paired my phone to my car, I even uninstalled and reinstalled Spotify, but no luck.

One thing I should note, this behavior seems to coincide with me clearing the storage of Spotify a few days ago (I noticed it was using a whole GB despite me removing all downloads from within the app, so I thought I'd force it). I can't be sure since I recall opening the playlist since then and seeing the playlist in the order I expected.

So what happened here and what might be a solution? I really like listening to news podcasts and prefer to listen to them in the order they were released.

[Mrsweeks6]

I am having the same problem, its only since my car system updated last week. My phone playlist order is 'recently added', but android auto order is the same as when I sort 'custom'

I have tried changing the order on my phone but makes no difference

Samsung S24 Plus

Android 16 

UI Version 8

Spotify 9.1.42.2058

[ovezande]

Same problem here, please fix it!

[Mrsweeks6]

Update to my previous post, this isn't just happening with Android Auto.  When I ask Alexa to play a playlist, she is now playing in the 'custom' order and not the order on my phone

[tolgahakantemiz]

Hi, I'm experiencing the same problem and I've noticed that my issue started when I added Google Maps to the Connected Apps section in Spotify's Apps and Devices settings, and I can't revert this setting. I hope the problem is resolved soon.

[Colethecapybara]

I am also having this issue since the time you described 

[skiguywr]

Same issue here as well.

[slyfer_pj]

Looks like on android auto, the playlist is being displayed always using the "Custom Order" sort option. I verified this by making changes to my custom order using the "edit" button in the playlist on my phone and it reflected those changes instantly on android auto. Ask the engineer to change it from using the "custom order" always on android auto, to the sort order on the phone.

[meridder]

Hi there, sorry this took me a while. Unfortunately, there's no way for me to select sort by artist in the episodes playlist so I tested out the reverse upload date.

I have attached two videos demonstrating the problem. The first shows what happens when I turn on my car after plugging my phone in. You can see there that the playlist is ordered by upload date on my phone, but Spotify for Android Auto is ordered by how recently the episodes were added to the playlist. The second video shows what happens when I unplug my phone, reverse the order of the playlist, plug my phone back in. The order shown on my car is still by what was most recently added.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E-3TRPCO-IcJirlJ07ptbFCMtQBVaL78/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10aouDhjN_JkT1GrsLjvUBgy_Zgn8GCNK/view?usp=sharing

Let me know if there's any information you need.

[meridder]

Hi, sorry this took me forever. I was able to attach a video in my response to another moderator (Yordan) and answer both of your questions. The order is unfortunately still messed up with Android Auto.

[tagunloye]

Did you get this problem fixed?

[tagunloye]

Im having the same problem 

[nauta2k81]

No, The fail continues

[KveruLars]

Same issue here.

OnePlus Nord 5

OxygenOS 16.0.5

Android 16

Spotify 9.1.44.2120

Android Auto showing the Custom order instead of whatever sorting my phone uses.

[Aullido]

Any updates? Same issue
Pixel 8
Android 16

Spotify 9.1.48.1663

[TheJCoops]

I've also been experiencing an issue with Android Auto. I listen to podcasts with the setting Oldest First, Not Finished.

There are a few times where on Android Auto, one episode finishes and it plays the previous episode (e.g. from finishing episode 5 to episode 4). This may only happen after Android Auto disconnects (sometimes due to losing mobile signal). I have pulled my car over multiple times to select the correct episode to play. My resolution has been to "add to queue" the episodes in the correct order.

Samsung Galaxy S24FE, running Android 16.

[Cameron8]

I have the same problem. EXTREMELY frustrating. I first got my car in 2019, didn't have the feature to sync to playlists then and made it almost impossible to see my new tracks added to my playlist because of the order it sets itself too. Only a couple of years ago, they FINALLY added the feature to sync the playlists, now I don't know what happened but theyve tinkered around with it AGAIN and now it's not syncing to the exact playlist order I want. Such a simple issue and they can't get it right. 

Galaxy s24+ user. 

[Pseudonym]

Version 9.1.50.1906

MG4

Same issue here. It always used to give you Custom Order regardless, then about a year ago it started following the sort order set in the app, then a few months ago it switched to being stuck on custom order only again.

[MBwaffle]

Same issue here. Pixel 3 / 2021 Skoda Superb. Extremely frustrating as my playlist has over 900 tracks and would take forever to scroll through them all to get to the most recent.

[stormerg]

This is a must have feature for me to continue using Spotify.

[Yordan]

Hey everyone,

The team has discovered the root cause of the issue and has scheduled a fix in an upcoming version of Spotify: 9.1.54.688! We're unable to provide an exact ETA for when that version will come out at the moment, but make sure you're always keeping the app updated in the meantime.

Thank you for your patience and for bringing this to our attention.

Cheers 🤘